i have an ibm thinkpad 600e pentium 2. a couple of days ago i was using it ok when it started to make some very suspicious clicking noises. i think it could be the hard disk drive that has failed as when i tried to restart the machine the ibm startup screen appeared and did the memory check ok and then reported an error code 174. i dont know what the error coded for ibm machines are and as a result was wondering if anyone could shed light on the error for me.

the ibm bios screen then appeared and when i looked at the options where you can test the individual components the hdd1 icon appeared to be greyed out. i dont think this is normal either. i tried to take the machine apart but the screws seem to be molten into the base of the machine.

please help... i have loads of work related documents on there that i cant afford to lose unless necessary.

JANINE,

From the information you provided, it appears you have a crashed HDD. I recommend installing the drive as a slave into a working computer and running recovery software. I use GETDATABACK for HDD recovery, but there are many available products.

J_

thanks for the advice there J. I have tested the hard drive and it seems that it is completely dead as in there is no life to it. besides to install the drive as a slave into a working computer i would have to purchase a drive enclosure kit and install into my desktop.

maybe i should just get a new machine and sacrifice my documents :cry: